THE TALE OF THE TWELVE DREAMS OF EMPEROR SHAKHAISHI IN SERBIAN COPIES

Abstract

The paper deals with Serbian copies of The Tale of Twelve Dreams of Emperor Shakhaishi. This work of Persian literature is known to exist in four complete copies kept at: the Savina Monastery (no 29), the Bodleian Library of Oxford University, signature no Canon. Lit. 413, the Patriarchate Library in Belgrade (no 343), Šafarik’s collection of manuscripts at the Czech National Museum in Prague, signature no IХ Н 16 (Š 19). There exist two copies containing only small introductory segments, lacking the whole of the first dream of Emperor Shakhaishi: at the Library of the Chilandar Monastery (no 98), and at the Archive of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (no 147). In terms of closeness, the manuscript copies from the Savina Monastery and from Šafarik’s collection stand out. The copy kept at the Patriarchate Library contains a considerably shorter text. Along with this paper, we append the edited texts from the collections referred to above, with the exception of the text from the Bodleian Library, which is inaccessible.